posted at 9:21 am on October 12, 2012 by Mary Katharine Ham

The first female combat pilot in U.S. military history would seem an unlikely target for a kitchen-themed attack ad, and yet that’s exactly what Nancy Pelosi’s House Majority PAC and Rep. Ron Barber have cooked up for Martha McSally, a retired Air Force colonel and pioneering A-10 pilot.

“Wall St. and Martha McSally—here’s what they’ve got cooking,” a female voiceover says as well-worn recipe cards pop out of a recipe box against a backdrop of fresh groceries. The ad features a photo of McSally on a recipe card alongside scribbled accusations like, “raise retirement age” and “essentially end Medicare.” The ad concludes, “McSally and Wall St.— a recipe for disaster.”

McSally, for her part, calls the accusations false and the ad’s theme “laughable.”

“The fact that they use this theme of Martha McSally in a kitchen cooking up recipes is…overtly sexist and insulting to any woman, but it certainly doesn’t fit specifically with me,” she said in a phone interview. “For crying out loud, I served 26 years in the military. I was too busy shooting 30 mm out of my A-10 at the Taliban and al Qaeda to spend any time in a kitchen.”

McSally has made requests of Barber’s campaign and the House Majority PAC to take the ad down, calling it “totally false and misleading”:

McSally’s running in a new 2nd Congressional District formed by redistricting, which is very narrowly Republican, split almost in thirds between the GOP, Democrats, and Independents. Barber is a former staffer for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was injured during Jared Loughner’s rampage in Tucson and recovered, later winning a special election to serve out Giffords’ term in Congress. Barber has good will in the district, but McSally said the special election, in which Jesse Kelly was bested, turned a page. Kelly decided not to run in the new 2nd CD.

“The community went through a horrible tragedy over a year and a half ago that put us in this place but that’s what the special election was about. They cleared the field for [Barber] and Gabby Giffords endorsed him in order to be a placeholder and a caretaker… and he’s doing that and I thank him for his service, but this November election is about the future,” McSally said. “This is a new fresh election between Ron Barber having to run in his own right, and myself, who brings a very different alternative that more closely fits the kind of people who get elected from this district.”

The NRCC has about $330,000 of ads scheduled in McSally’s district right now. A DCCC poll showed a 14-point lead for Barber at the beginning of October, but McSally and Republicans believe the race is far closer. A McSally poll showed her trailing by five points in August, and a more recent one reported in Roll Callshowed a dead heat.

“All of that name-calling and rhetoric is just not helpful right now,” McSally said. “I’ve been fighting for women’s rights and women’s equality my whole life. I’ve put my life on the line. I’ve certainly broken through some glass ceilings during interesting transitions that were less than friendly environments.”

McSally’s no stranger to having the odds stacked against her. Despite having air sickness as a child and entering the military when being a fighter pilot was against the law for women, she set her sights on her unlikely career. The youngest of five kids, her father died when she was just 12 years old.

“One of the last things he said to me, in between heart attacks, before he died was to make him proud. And, so I was 12 years old, and in that time of junior high and high school, I certainly had a lot of life lessons come way too early.”

Her father’s service in the military inspired her to look into the service academies, and she was accepted to the Air Force Academy, planning to become a military doctor.

“It wasn’t until I got to the academy that I became very motivated to become a fighter pilot, quite frankly because they told me that I couldn’t, ” she said. “I’m going through the same training as everybody else, but if I were to then go onto pilot training, just because I’m a woman, I wasn’t able to be a fighter pilot. I just thought that was crap.”

So, she declared her desire to be a fighter pilot, graduated from the Academy, and went to the Kennedy School at Harvard, picking up a master’s degree in public policy while the Pentagon was pondering a policy change. She did pilot training and was in a position as an instructor when the change came down.

“I was just fortunate to be in the right place in the right time with the right qualifications,” she said.

Since then, McSally has flown some 300 combat hours over Iraq and Afghanistan, earning the Bronze Star during her time commanding a combat squadron in Operation Enduring Freedom during 2005 and 2006.

McSally also sued her bosses at the Department of Defense in the early 2000s to change Pentagon policy forcing women service members to wear the abaya— Muslim body covering— when they went off base in Saudi Arabia. The policy changed. She uses that powerful example when constituents wonder if she’ll simply toe the party line once she gets to Washington, she said.

“I’m a conservative and I’m an independent thinker.”

But sure, McSally in a kitchen is the first thing that springs to mind.

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Recipes, bags of groceries in the background, plastic recipe holder… if that doesn’t say garage workshop I don’t know what does. Who keeps their food in a kitchen, who keeps their recipes in the kitchen.

When I’m cooking I know my food is out in the workshop, my recipes are downstairs in the basement by the washing machine, and my pots are in the bathtub… like normal people.

Thinking recipes and grocery bags and food = kitchen is reaching. Nobody keeps recipes and food in the kitchen.

…

Oh, and there is no “women belong in the kitchen” sexism commentary that has ever been made in the history of ever that could apply either… that never existed.

OW, damn… sorry Dante, denying REALITY that hard gave me a headache. I’m going to have to go back to the real world now. Your weird little fantasy is interesting to visit, but not someplace I could live.

I know Martha Sally. I was stationed at the same base with her at Tucson Arizona back in the nineties. Very nice and Humble lady despite her killer occupation. We went to bible studies together and she sings well at church…yes, she’s a Christian and executes judgment very well on the battle field, doing her part in keeping hell packed with souls.

I don’t care about party nonsense. How do people vote for such terrible people to LEAD THEM?!?!

I just don’t get it,

KMC1 on October 12, 2012 at 11:15 AM

Two words KMC1, “FREE STUFF!” There is a saying out there that people vote with their pocketbooks. In the case of leftist loons, that is very true. They vote for the people who will give them the most stuff and they vote with other people’s pocketbooks.

Pelsoi is the most despised politician in this country, and for good reason. She is a loon, a liar and an overall nasty person who has helped herself to taxpayer money through her position and is determined to help Obama destroy our country.

McSally is a patriot who has served our country well. We need people like her in congress instead of the bunch of lying socialist democrats there now.

Dante,
A punk like you would.
Not have survived the training my daughter went through.the problem with skirtboys like you is that good men and women have sacrificed all to protect ungrateful slugs such as yourself. They day will come when we too lose our civility and meet you and your ilk in the street. It will be brief

I didn’t ask everyone else for their explanation; I asked you. The definition of sexist is “discriminatory on the basis of sex”. So if you don’t know the meaning of the word, then how can you properly identify something as sexist?

You said the ad is sexist. I’ll ask you again: What’s sexist about it? Be specific in explaining how this ad is discriminatory on the basis of sex.

Dante on October 12, 2012 at 10:29 AM

Definition of SEXISM
1
: prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women2
: behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex

Context aside, the ad makes no sense. Wall Street is conspiring with McSally to change Medicare……why, exactly? What does Wall Street get out of it? Why should it care if Medicare goes bankrupt, or doesn’t, or changes coverage? This isn’t just fear mongering, it’s fear mongering for idiots.

Now if you happen to want to appeal to a constituency of millions of government bureaucrat rent-seekers who want to siphon off large salaries and generous pensions from other people’s enforced dependency on government social engineering, especially if you wanted to keep the fat cat union bosses of those employees happy, I could see where you’d have a dog in this fight.

It’s DANTE! It’s nothing more than a Troll and has been since the first day it showed up here on HA.

OF COURSE it knows that the ad is sexist.

OF COURSE it comprehends the ridiculous double standard in play here.

But that’s not the reason it is here. It’s here to get you talking about and to IT rather than about the issue we are discussing. It’s here to disrupt with ridiculous inanities and stubborn incoherence. It’s here to feed it’s own ego.

STOP FEEDING THE TROLL AND IT WILL GO AWAY.

(Also, The admins could apply a little trollbegone to the comment threads once in awhile too. That would be nice.)

Dante, you’re a sack of excrement. Your only purpose here to dissemble, to run ”damage control” for your illiberal ideology. Any of us could write your lines for you and probably should, as we’d at least be entertaining. Whereas your du rigueur gain saying is anything but.

A question that springs to mind every time we read your posts. Trying to pretend that a kitchen themed ad run by a man against a woman running for office isn’t sexist could be used by wikipedia to illustrate intellectual dishonesty.

Trying to pretend that a kitchen themed ad run by a man against a woman running for office isn’t sexist could be used by wikipedia to illustrate intellectual dishonesty.

talkingpoints on October 12, 2012 at 5:14 PM

This is true.

And it also points to another hidden truth: The fact that we, a bunch of conservatives, have been sensitized to kitchen images as “sexist” shows how much leftie themes have corrupted the nation’s political discourse and even our own thought processes.

Because, when you think of it, why should kitchen images per se be bad? Why should they have any negative association with women, or any negative connotation at all? Don’t we all, men and women, eat? Don’t we all like food? Aren’t most of us able to at least scramble an egg, or boil water for tea, or “make a sammich” (the horror!)?

The answer lies in the progressive mindset. Early feminism (equity feminism) said, “You don’t have to stay in the kitchen just because you’re female, ladies! If you want to work outside the house, you can and should be able to.” Modern feminism (gender feminism) says, “You must abandon the kitchen. Moreover, you must denounce and deplore it as a symbol and tool of the Male Oppressor. Your personal desires are irrelevant and must be sacrificed for the Greater Good of Ending Male Oppression and exacting revenge for the thousands of years of Oppression practiced upon us all by Males. If you make the same choice your ancestresses did, simply because you prefer it, you are a Traitor and a Quisling.”

The answer lies in the progressive mindset. Early feminism (equity feminism) said, “You don’t have to stay in the kitchen just because you’re female, ladies! If you want to work outside the house, you can and should be able to.” Modern feminism (gender feminism) says, “You must abandon the kitchen. Moreover, you must denounce and deplore it as a symbol and tool of the Male Oppressor. Your personal desires are irrelevant and must be sacrificed for the Greater Good of Ending Male Oppression and exacting revenge for the thousands of years of Oppression practiced upon us all by Males. If you make the same choice your ancestresses did, simply because you prefer it, you are a Traitor and a Quisling.”

A-yep, I hear you. Coming of age in the ’80s as I did, I found so-called “second wave” feminism (i.e. gender feminism) exceedingly unappealing. Later on it became lunatic, creating its own myths of a matriarchal past with no war (yeah, right! Ask an archaeologist if there was ever a time with no war.). Ursula K. LeGuin (whose science fiction I love) has advocated for a female-run society “ruled by custom, not by law”. She has no idea what a straitjacket that would be. At least, under law, you can face your accusers, sue for injunctive relief, appeal an adverse decision, campaign to change a law, etc. Custom, on the other hand, is merciless. Imagine a society run by whispering campaign. The thought makes me shudder.

Feminism didn’t just lose you and me. It lost its way. Modern feminism has moved on from improving women’s lot in life and has tackled the destruction of Western society. It is objectively pro-Islamofascism: Modern feminism doesn’t seem to give a damn about the actual plight of modern women who are being mutilated in their tenderest parts as children, stoned to death for wearing make-up, etc. Oh, no — it’s much more important to win the “pronoun wars,” or lead the fight against gendered restrooms.

If you want to put a total “Pain in the ass” in Congress—- Martha McSally is your man !!

All the “below the radar” stuff seen on this “male” wannabe , military ass-pain, prima-dona makes BigSven suddenly become bi-partisan.

BigSven is sticking with Ron Barber on this one !!

“For crying out loud, I served 26 years in the military. I was too busy shooting 30 mm out of my A-10 at the Taliban and al Qaeda to spend any time in a kitchen.”–whined McSally (careful–when angered, she might “kick you in the jimmy”)

Sorry man…this alone gives YOU NO cred with BigSven….government “diversity” pain-in-the-ass promotees —Had a bellyfull of them !!

Had to reread your comment again. If I take you correctly, if I do, you realize “you” are who everyone was referring to in the mentality that makes this ad sexist.

I read your comments and have never seen this side of your rationale. Please tell me I’m mistaken about your context. Specifically that McSally was promoted because of gender and you’d vote for the donk over her because you hate seeing women progress in the military?

And, if the recipe theme has NOTHING to do with her gender, where’s the House Majority PAC’s kitchen-themed ad about one of the male candidates it’s attacking? Find it for me.

Mary Katharine Ham on October 12, 2012 at 10:39 AM

I’m shocked you would trot out a logical fallacy.

Dante on October 12, 2012 at 2:03 PM

You know, MKH, I understand why conservative blogs allow lefty posters the privilege of posting, unlike DU or Kos – the principle of fair-mindedness and allowing all points of view and all that. But, here at Hot Air, the lefty posters, AKA trolls, don’t really care to debate their points of view vis a vis conservatives. All they care about is the dissemination of strawmen, red herrings, and squirrels in order to distract and divert the conversation, especially when their side is getting the worst of it.

Which leads me to my question: Aren’t you authorized to swing the banhammer? Because if anyone deserves it, it’s Dante.

Of course the ad is playing to a “homemaker” stereotype. The ad is all sweetness and light with a condescending narration. It tries to replace the image of a fighter pilot with a “silly” housewife who really shouldn’t be opining on things she knows nothing about.

It plays to the Dem feminist base, too, offering them an picture (monumentally false as it is), of a stay-at-home mom, a (shudder) non-working unprofessional woman.

Don’t get too excited about McSally being a Republican. She’s definitely not conservative in all areas of policy. She might be the sort of person we need on our side – she is a bit of a bull about getting things her way.

As to the ad, no, I doubt she could cook an omelette without help. But, G_d help you if you step into the ring with her. Obamacare won’t adequately cover your trauma bill, I’m betting.